Crystal Kwok is an award winning filmmaker who established her career in Hong Kong as an actress, writer, director, and talk show host. She won the audience choice awards at the 2000 Deauville Asian Film Festival for her debut feature length film, The Mistress. She was commissioned by Canal Plus to document “A Day in the Life of Jackie Chan” as part of the centennial celebration of international directors. She created and produced a bilingual edutainment video series for young children, “The Culture Cubs” and wrote and has staged several original plays about sensitive women’s issues. As a strong women’s advocate, her talk show on Cable TV and RTHK Radio3, “Kwoktalk” broke boundaries in Hong Kong with conversations about women and sexuality.

A proud Bay Area local, Mo is a mixed Chicana and Nikkei Adjunct Professor of Ethnic Studies at San Jose City College. Her academic background includes a B.A. in Religious Studies from UC Berkeley and an M.A. in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University. Her research has focused on centering the experience of working-class women of color and the representation of mixed-race people. She has spent the last 10+ years working in educational spaces focused on creating equitable classrooms and curricula that speak to the complex and rich histories of BIPOC that are traditionally left out in both K-12 and higher education. She is also a proud advocate and mother to an amazing autistic 7-year-old that brings pure joy and motivation to her life every day.